Shadows
by Mornen
Summary: Finwë and Míriel meet after death in the Halls of Mandos. Gratulerer med dagen, Duilin!


_I made an audio version of this story, which can be found by searchin_g _'Finwë and Míriel - Shadows' in youtube. It should be the first result._

* * *

_Why?_

I do not know if I spoke it, or if I heard you call it to me. All I know is that it is now here, echoing against the empty walls and down the wide corridors that move back to nothing in the grey. It wraps itself about me like a gale, a wasted wind, until I cannot but loose myself in it. Such a question, so vague, so pointed; it tears at me with its sharpness and cuts into the heart that I had foolishly forgotten I have.

But whether you asked it or I, I can still hear the answers spinning back to me from some faraway place that nothing could ever reach. They cast themselves about me, trying to tear the question away and expose my thoughts and meanings to you, or to me. Strangely, I do not which is more frightening.

_I was tired._

That is your voice. I hear it clear and strong in my mind; your words always burned, somehow. They fell from your lips like a little stream, fast, quick, but hot. Losing myself in them, I loved you.

_I was lonely. _

That voice is mine. It is hesitant, slow, not the voice that you are used to. Even to my own ears it sounds strange, like a dull murmur, grating even. It is building a wall, I know now. I think it is to protect me.

I am so afraid of your scorn. Forever, I would have waited for you; forever, I would have cared. Or so I promised once when we, and the world, were still young.

Time changes so many things, I suppose, although that hardly seems what I should be saying, or even thinking. No, I would not have said it before, when your hand was still warm in mine, and your heart beat against my chest as if it were part of me.

Kissing you again and again so that our lips and skin and hair were one, I cried. The eyes I loved would not look at me; the hands I loved could not feel. As I did in the darkness we came from together, I wept alone; you watched and would not answer me.

I wasted so many years waiting by you.

_Did you not see?_

A flicker of grey, a shadow of light: you are here. I thought I would never see you again. When you died, I was certain that was all. Perhaps I never considered that I would die someday, even if I stood over your body a thousand times and wished my life away.

But like some unwanted stranger you come towards me; the thought of your fingers hovers close to me, brushing my fëa, stirring it to you, and I draw away.

_I was resting._

Your voice is softer now. I would think it an apology if I did not know you as well as I do.

_I loved him._

So that is your answer. That is your explanation. That is everything that was ever worth anything to you. You told me he would be great when you left him, still a helpless babe in my arms, his fists closed, his eyes open, his mind already wheeling. You told me that his fire was great as you left us, to rest for but a little while.

_Did you intend to come back?_

The halls are grey and still, pillars and corridors that wind their way back to darkness, floors and ceilings that nothing will ever touch. My fëa cannot feel them, and neither can yours, as if we were trapped in nothing with shadows. I can feel the peace and rest that you longed for so desperately, that you left everything you loved for. This grey, this silence, this nothing: I love it as well. I will not despise your answer.

_No. _

Space lies between us, if there is any here. Time slips by, if it exists anymore. I stand; yet do not. I wait; yet I have already heard what you said. Will say. Are saying.

_I am so sorry, Finwë._

That is an apology. I had not expected one from you – you who stood so proud and bold behind the stitches that you caught your life in, stubborn beyond reason and care.

_Yet you abandoned me._

I can still hear their news, raging like trumpets in my ears: _She will not come back_. I screamed when they left me, trying to drown out the words that would haunt me ever after.

_I had no choice._

You rest beside me, like a breath, like the life we once had.

_And I did?_

_No. The blame lies on us neither._

So it only just happened. You were tired, and I was lonely, and so we changed forever. We seem to have believed that such commonplace ailments were enough reason to alter the course of everything, or else we did not know what they would bring.

And so you died. And so I wed. And so the world was ripped open with the greatness and wonder that only love could bring.

_He hated her._

_I know._

Golden hair and blue eyes to comfort me in my despair – she was everything unlike you, for I did not want to remember.

Your _hr__öa_, crumpled, wasted, flesh fading away: did you know I watched it fail? Did you know I stood beside your body and watched it dissolve into the green grass, my heart tight as your face withered?

_It has been so long._

Shadows tremble against your light; I long to turn away and lose myself in this vastness, perhaps to stay here forever.

_And I have forgotten the meaning of time._

Lost in this bleakness, I too cannot remember.

_You forgot the meaning of everything._

Why do I let my words bite? You do not flinch, but they cut me like the moment I first saw you cry. Now I know that whatever I say no longer matters.

_Míriel, I loved you._


End file.
